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Consumers have points and miles worth an estimated $48 billion. Maritz offers security tips for brands.

St. Louis, MO (PRWEB)November 15, 2016

Maritz Motivation Solutions announced that the company has introduced a new LoyaltyNext® Fraud Management Suite, an evolution in enabling marketers and brands to detect and prevent fraud in loyalty programs.

Points accumulating in loyalty programs globally are real currencies with increasing value that have attracted the attention of criminals, according to Barry Kirk, vice president of Loyalty Solutions for Maritz Motivation Solutions. In the US alone, 3.3 billion loyalty program memberships have stored points and miles worth an estimated $48 billion, according to the Gartner Group.

Loyalty program fraud can be perpetrated in a variety of ways, such as hackers stealing credit card and member identity data, or thieves taking points or attempting fraudulent travel redemptions, Kirk said.

“Consumers have been aware of the danger of fraud and identity theft via their personal bank accounts for years, but they are only just now beginning to realize that loyalty currency is real money and needs the same level of protection as any of their financial accounts,” Kirk said.

“Fraud also has a significant impact on loyalty budgets,” said Kirk. “It means marketers are essentially paying twice for redemptions. And it tarnishes your brand image with customers.”

From January through September of 2016, the LoyaltyNext Fraud Management Suite has stopped more than $1M in fraudulent order transactions in client programs.

“In addition to monitoring fraud, Maritz’ information security strategy is based on the ISO 27001 and PCI security standards,” said Bryan Phillips, senior vice president of Technology, Maritz Motivation Solutions. “We follow a layered approach, where overlapping physical and logical security controls are in place to prevent unauthorized access to both systems, email and data. In the event of a failure of one layer of security, the next layer is designed to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive information.”

Effective management of fraud in a loyalty program starts with engaging a partner with deep experience in the industry. Maritz offers three specific fraud mitigation tips for loyalty marketers:

Perform background checks for all employees with access to program data, including: criminal history checks and highest level of education, credit checks and foreign records search, if applicable.

Maintain 24/7 monitoring of intrusion detection sensors and firewall log monitoring for all of your program’s technology environments, including email.

“The security risk for loyalty currency is significant, and fraud prevention increasingly needs to be the top priority for a healthy program,” Kirk said. “With this next evolution of our fraud management capabilities, we’re able to provide marketers and brands with actionable intelligence to recognize trusted users versus compromised identities and devices. Our goal is a simple one: to help loyalty program owners avoid fraud as their program expands, ensuring the very best customer experience while decreasing program costs.”

About Maritz Motivation Solutions

Maritz Motivation Solutions is part of the Maritz family of companies. The company is a leader in providing consumer loyalty, employee recognition, sales incentive and channel loyalty programs to U.S. and global companies. Maritz Motivation Solutions LoyaltyNext® is a full-service loyalty solution. The company provides best-in-class rewards and fulfillment services including purposefully-chosen merchandise and experiences that excite, motivate and recognize people around the world. The people who work for Maritz Motivation Solutions are dedicated to being the best in the business, fun to work with and their clients’ most valuable ally. For more information, visit http://www.maritzmotivation.com, subscribe to our blog, follow us on Twitter or call 1-877-4-Maritz (1-877-462-7489).